


come on let's make a get away

by mercurialMalcontent



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Mild Blood, Other, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 05:24:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1040853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercurialMalcontent/pseuds/mercurialMalcontent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eridan's brows furrow upward as you brush past. He follows you in silence to your respiteblock, and when you hand him a shirt out of your closet, he frowns at it and picks at the buttons. "Kar? Is this..." He looks up at you, swallows hard, and drops his gaze. "Is this what I think it is?"</p><p>Your guts do a funny wobbly thing. "Yes, Eridan, that is indeed a shirt," you say in an attempt to lighten the suddenly uneasy mood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	come on let's make a get away

**Author's Note:**

> Some time ago Laylah tempted me with the idea of tiny rumble spheres being a total pale turnon for trolls. I absolutely had to do a little something with that.

Going into the city with Eridan Ampora was not the worst idea you've ever had, but as you duck the fist of an enormous brownblood, you decide it's definitely in the top five.

He'd just wanted to go shopping, he'd said. Just wanted to look around a bit, see some of the local sights. What sights, you'd said, it's a squeakbeast infested maze of concrete and despair. All the same, he'd said, I want to go see them, and besides, I need a new pair of shoes. You'd considered his taste in shoes, and the possibility that you could convince him to get some that weren't globes-out ugly, and offered to show him around. 

Well, okay, it wasn't just his taste in shoes. You might just be some chump who lives in a lawnring, but you're a far sight more familiar with cities than him, and you didn't want to find out he wandered down a dark alley and caused massive collateral damage before he got shanked. He'd tried to insist he didn't need looking after, but he didn't insist all that hard. You weren't sure whether to feel flattered or taken for granted. 

Despite your worst fears, chaos and terror do not rain down the instant Eridan steps his princely toes out of the scuttlebuggy and onto the still-warm pavement of the city. It continues to not rain down as you follow him from store to store, making fun of his sense of style and getting hilariously grouched at for it the whole way. Afterward, he buys you lunch, then candy to take home. You're torn between suspicion and greed; you manage to resolve the two urges and get a single large bag of chocolate-covered jellies.

Everything was going swimmingly until about five minutes ago, when Eridan had gotten tired of waiting for a taxi to drive by and had flounced off to find a busier street. You'd been tempted to just let him wander off for a while, since you'd thought this part of the city was safe, but that thought was immediately followed by angry shouting.

You'd run after him and down an alley, only to nearly run into the brownblood's fist, and now you're having regrets that you ever offered to accompany Eridan.

"Rich boy has a friend," the huge troll bellows, and takes another swing at you. You dodge, trip, and fall into a clumsy roll that does a better job of getting you out of the way than doing it intentionally would have. The big bastard who tried to punch you stumbles into something with a spectacular crash, but you have no time for that; you have the attention of a few more trolls now, and the only sign of Eridan is an unholy shrieking from the other end of the alleyway.

You dodge the others as you run toward the source of the sound, kicking and elbowing as you go, and come across a brutal scene of battered, groaning thugs lying everywhere. A bloodied Eridan is in the center of the carnage, smacking one thug's head repeatedly into a wall. "You nicked my gill, you nicked my fuckin' _gill_ ," Eridan screams at the guy, who's scrabbling weakly at Eridan's hands in a futile attempt to get him to let go.

"Eridan!" you shout, but he's still wailing about his gill and attempting to bash that poor fucker's head in. "ERIDAN!"

You lunge toward him -- you're going to have to get him by a horn to drag him off -- only to scream, yourself, as someone gets in a good hard smack to your kidneys. That, you see from under the sparks in your vision, gets Eridan to turn his head. 

That unholy shriek returns as he lauches himself toward somewhere behind you. Screaming ensues, but you don't pay much attention until the stars clear from your vision and you can stand again. When you climb to your feet, Eridan's wrestling one of the thugs and both are screaming to fit to wake the dead, while the others circle around warily.

There's a groan from behind you, sounds of movement; you really need to get your pet asshole out of here.

You charge forward when Eridan throws the thug off, grab his horn and plant your feet so he can't throw you off. "Time to go, finface!" you announce, and start pulling. 

Eridan screams and flails at your head briefly until he realizes it's you. "Kar, no, Kar, I'm not done killin' them!" he snarls and tries to pull away, to no avail. You may not go from zero to blender of death in under a second like he does, but once you have ahold of something, you don't let go.

"We're going home," you say firmly, urging him into a run as the sound of commotion builds behind you. "Move your ass!"

You burst out onto the street proper and right into the path of a taxi. It conveniently screeches to a halt, allowing you to wrench open a door and thrown Eridan in, and yourself after him.

A terrified oliveblood is trying to melt into the side opposite, and the yellowblood driver, a kid not even a sweep older than you, is staring at you wide-eyed from the rearview mirror. "Wherever you're going, go," you order the driver, with a kick to the back of the seat. "Come on, bugeyes! Unless you want to see a streetfight up close and personal!"

The taxi lurches forward just as some of the thugs scramble out of the alleyway. The driver dusts them, nearly throwing you and Eridan into the front seat with her in the process, but you don't care; you're well away and still alive, if not undamaged. 

You sigh and close your eyes. "How's the gill?"

"The fuckfaced landsucker nicked it, Kar, it hurts," he whines. "He nicked it with his rusty ass piece of shit knife! It's gonna get infected and I'm gonna get sepsis and die horribly!"

"Eridan--"

"Everythin' is so fuckin' dirty here, I probably got like fifty viruses just breathin' this air and now my poor fuckin' gill Kar, what am I gonna do?"

"Calm down--"

"Oh god, I'm feelin' faint, I might be bleedin' to death, Kar--"

The oliveblood makes himself as small as possible, lest you accuse him of causing some of the damage on Eridan. Not that he seems to have much -- his shirt is tattered and he might have a few scrapes, but you're pretty sure most of the blood on him belongs to the thugs. "Not unless you've suddenly gone rust."

"Oh god, oh god, I swear on the horrorterrors I'm gonna haunt those assholes-- Kar, if I die, bury me at sea--"

"Will you shut up? You aren't dying!"

You go back and forth with him about this the entire way back to your hive. Not long into the trip the oliveblood gets to his stop -- or rather, stammers that this is his stop until the driver pulls over, at which point he shoves a fistful of money at her and flees. That pauses the argument briefly, but the scuttlebuggy has barely moved back into traffic when it starts up again.

By the time you're stepping into your hive, Eridan has nearly worked himself up into a fit. His gill must be infected, his scratches are going to leave scars, his shirt is torn, his scarf is missing. You point out to him that scarring won't matter if he dies of a gill infection, and he wails and looks like he's going to smash something. Possibly you.

You resist the urge to hit him first. "Look, you overdramatic asshole, you're not dying--"

"I might be!"

"--and if you are, I've got stuff to glue you back together with. Take off your shirt and come back to the ablution chamber."

Eridan hesitates as you turn. "Take off... my shirt?"

"Unless you want it affixed to your skin." You ignore his irritated huff and make your way to the ablution chamber. Eridan follows after a moment more of hesitation.

"Can't believe they took my fuckin' scarf," he mutters as he shoulders past you and starts unfastening the shoulder snaps of his shirt.

"I can't believe it either, that thing was awful," you say as you rummage around for your medikit.

Eridan blurts an outraged sound. "It was amazin'. Cost me a quarter of my allowance, way back when. Troll Louis Vitton don't come cheap, you know!"

"You paid for that piece of shit?" You find the medikit and straighten. "I'd thought you'd taken it off the body of one of your..."

"One of my what?" Eridan finishes stepping out of his shirt and kicks it to the side. "C'mon, Kar, if you're goin' to sass me at least finish your sentence."

You couldn't finish it if you wanted to. You've completely forgotten how to form words. You are utterly enraptured by the lines of his torso. He's lean, well-muscled from all of his ridiculous FLARPing but with scarcely any extra fat to round him out. His rumble spheres barely even rate the term; they're just two curves of muscle barely standing out from his chest. You'd thought he'd bound them down for some reason, but no, he just barely has anything.

"Kar? What're you staring at?" Eridan twists, trying to look at his back in your dinky mirror. "I don't got anything worse than a nicked gill, do I?"

God, he's thin. With muscles like that he obviously doesn't starve, but how does he stay warm? You want to sit him down and feed him grubcakes until he's got some squish to his sharp edges and some roundness to his chest.

"Kar, what's the matter? I got a hole in me somewhere, don't I. It's so bad I can't even feel it. I must've left half my guts in the taxi!" Eridan twists and turns, frantically searching his nearly spotless torso for gaping wounds. "Come on, Kar! I'm dyin', ain't I? Oh my god, I'm dyin', and you won't say a fuckin' thing!"

Your hand drifts to his bare shoulder. "Eridan."

He gives you a wild-eyed stare. "What?!"

You slip your hand down and smooth your hand over one of his rumble spheres. "Calm your tits." 

Eridan's earfins flush. "Uh. Does this mean the hole isn't that bad?"

"Shoosh, you absurd idiot." You pap him -- well, it's more like you're petting him, his spheres are so flat and firm that papping just wouldn't have the same effect. "You don't have any holes other than the ones you were born with."

The flush spreads across his cheeks. "No. No gouges, either?"

"No gouges." Eridan opens his mouth again and your put your hand over it. "I said shoosh, asshole." You meet his eyes for a long moment, and the flush spreads all the way to his collarbones. "Now I'm going to clean you up, and you're going to stay quiet so I'm not tempted to cause any holes, got it?" Your voice is too dreamy to make any sort of convincing threat, but he nods anyway and don't open his squawker again when you remove your hand. 

You set to work cleaning him up with a wet washcloth and a bit of disinfectant soap, first, since city dirt and other peoples' blood are probably more of a health risk than the scratches themselves. You start with his face; he gapes like a fish as you slip his glasses off, but he doesn't protest. He's trembling, though, as you wipe the cloth over his cheeks and nose, around his jaw, down his neck.

You're trembling, too, but you don't stop to think about it. You get the blood and dirt off of where it soaked through his shirt, then you take off his rings and wash his hands. They tremble the worst of all, especially as you work his fingers over. After you dry them they flutter at his sides like he wants to do something with them, but for the life of him can't figure out what. 

Antiseptic comes next, daubed over the worst of the scratches. Then there's his nicked gill -- and despite his histrionics, it is just a tiny cut to the edge of one. Still, you disinfect it -- better safe than sorry -- and when Eridan shrieks and flails, you don't even yell at him. You just pat at his chest until he squeaks and flushes again, then resume daubing.

"There. You didn't die even slightly," you say as you draw away. 

Eridan breathes a sigh and shivers. "Yeah, I guess I didn't." He toes at his shirt. "This, on th' other hand, does need to be buried at sea." 

"Or cremated." You frown at it, then shake your head. "I'll get to it later. For now, let's get you covered back up."

"Uh?"

"A shirt." You stand and wave him out of the ablution chamber. "I don't want your dumb purple ass to freeze." 

"Oh. Uh. You mean... one a yours?"

"Do you see any other trolls in this hive?"

Eridan's brows furrow upward as you brush past. He follows you in silence to your respiteblock, and when you hand him a shirt out of your closet, he frowns at it and picks at the buttons. "Kar? Is this..." He looks up at you, swallows hard, and drops his gaze. "Is this what I think it is?"

Your guts do a funny wobbly thing. "Yes, Eridan, that is indeed a shirt," you say in an attempt to lighten the suddenly uneasy mood. 

"No, you insufferable font a sarcasm, I mean." Eridan gestures with the shirt. "This. With the whole haulin' me back home and cleaning me up and, uh." He goes purple all over again and his shoulders hunch.

Shit. SHIT. You thought it was blatant what this is, with how fucking forward you were being, but this is Eridan Ampora. He can't tell friendliness or animosity from flirting; all he knows is that it's Attention and runs toward it like a bug to a lightsource. If he does have the wrong idea, what the hell are you going to do? You can't bear to break his bloodpusher. 

You take the coward's way out and stall for time. "Well, what do you think it is?" It comes out kind of accusatory and you immediately feel bad at how his shoulders hunch more.

"Well, uh. I'm pretty sure, like, what with the troll-handlin' and the pappin' and all, that it's, uh, pale...?" Eridan glances at you from under his brows, like a guilty kid.

You stare back at him. "You aren't sure? You seriously aren't sure." Despite yourself, you start to laugh. "God, you're pitiful," you blurt, and relief washes over you -- there. You said it out loud, you admitted it. "Yes it's pale, you enormous tool--augh!" You flail, but it's no use; you're being squeezed breathless by a troll who's got way too many pointy bits and hard places for your own good.

"Oh my god Kar, oh my god, I'm so fuckin' pale for you you don't even know but I never knew how to say--"

You gasp and wince. "Eridan--"

"An' I didn't know if you felt the same way or how to bring it up but you made the first move, you did it because you're Karkat goddamn Vantas and this is the happiest day of my whole glubbin' life-- ow!"

He lets you go to rub at the horn you bonked. You give him a glare as you wheeze. "I have to-- breathe sometimes-- you know--"

"Sorry," Eridan says sheepishly, and pats you awkwardly between the horns. Wow, he's bad at this. It's kind of adorable. "I'll make it up to you! We can watch a movie and I'll feed you candy?"

REALLY bad at this. You cross your arms. "You say that like it's not my hive and my candy."

"Yeah, well, it's the thought that counts, isn't it? Anyway, I bought extra candy because I didn't think you got enough."

A retort dies in your throat and you go a little gooey inside. Must be the remnants of your good sense melting away. You shake your head and chuckle. "Okay, okay, whatever. Put on the fucking shirt and let's go pick out a movie."

As Eridan follows you out to your entertainment block, you catch him smiling down at the symbol on his borrowed shirt, and you can't help but smile too.


End file.
